Reviews by meemesker

New Wave Prog Masterpiece. Equal parts warm soul and cold synths.

I like this better than "evermore" and her indie folk stuff but I still don't LIKE it. "Shake It Off" is a standout track though. I definitely prefer T Swift the more fun and carefree she gets. Conversely, the low stakes melodrama of "Wildest Dreams" gave me a significant impulse to skip the track. And the breathy double-tracked stereo-panned vocals on "This Love" made me feel like she was giving me an incredibly awkward and somewhat unwelcome ear massage. I wish she would do something that would truly surprise me. Like really let her inner freak out somehow. Or maybe just take some of the studio polish off. This is so slick I can't get a grip on it.

This sounds like Smog but 30 years earlier. Nice blend of genres and surprisingly soulful. The Indian influence on the last song was an unexpected twist.

Frank is an acquired taste. I want to say that at its core this is a pop record, albeit an extremely twisted one, but perhaps a better way to say it is that it's completely disingenuous. He subverts the pop sound of his time, and immediate past, at every turn, with a sarcastic flat tone, bizarre humor, experimental flourishes, kazoos, etc. It's quite difficult to ignore all that and simply enjoy the melodies, but they are there if you want them. It does sort of go out the window with the last few songs on the album, like he just couldn't hold back anymore, and finally had to let his true inner freak out.

If you continue to listen to his albums in chronological order, this seems tame by comparison to what comes afterwards, but all his bizarre musical tendencies are present here. There are moments that almost sound like Mr. Bungle, or other groups that came decades later. At once very much of its time and way ahead of it.

Decent punk I suppose, but it got more annoying as it went on. A single by this band on a compilation or playlist would be fine, but a whole album just starts to sound fatiguing. Pales in comparison to their contemporaries like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, etc.

First off, straight up 1 star for the song about John Wayne Gacy. One of the few songs in the world I absolutely abhor and find truly unlistenable. Second, he comes across like the David Foster Wallace, or better yet, the Dave Eggers of indie rock. I can see how some people are impressed by this brand of seemingly boundless, nearly absurd ambition, but for me it just doesn't work in practice. I don't know if he's trying to be oh so clever that it's supposed to come back around to being perceived as sincere and heartfelt? Ironically pretentious? But it's so over the top that it's a joke - get it??? Well, I don't.

This sounds like Billy Corgan forced Radiohead and Coldplay to collaborate on an album about conspiracy theories at gunpoint.

I absolutely love the mood and atmosphere of this album. I often think of music in terms of "day music" and "night music" and this is pretty much THE epitome of night music. Bittersweet and seductive. Romantic but honest. I feel like almost any professional musician would have to identify with that title track. I remember hearing Willie Nelson's version of it first when I was a kid, and I love that version too, but there is something about this version that is so much more haunting. The rest of the album doesn't quite have the same magic as that opening track, but it's still top notch crying-in-your-beer country. The playing, production, and arrangements are all spot on. I especially love that splash of reverb on the vocals. The fact that the songs all adhere to that theme of the trials and tribulations of life in the bar scene is what makes it so great (and believable). A perfectly executed concept album before concept albums were a thing. The intro is a bit goofy, but quaint in an old fashioned way. And goddamn that cover is so cinematic.

Average White Blues. Well, I suppose there are a few surprises along the way though: the extended breakdown on Shapes of Things, the subtle bagpipe intro to Morning Dew, and then it's all Merry Christmas with Greensleeves smack in the middle? WTF? All that, in combination with the inclusion of live tracks, kept making think the album was over and Spotify had moved onto something else. Very much has the feel of a compilation.

Though I prefer Andrew Weatherall's other project, Two Lone Swordsmen, slightly more, I do appreciate this. Has lots of interesting layered pitch shifting and dubby reverb and delay all over it, giving it a high contrast blend of treble and bass. Very textured atmosphere, but it definitely has a harshness to it, so I can see why some people find it unpalatable. I gravitate towards the more downtempo numbers like "Duke of Earlsfield" and the one remixed by Portishead. If I heard this high AF at a 90's rave it might've broken my brain.

Like the best DVD menu music you've ever heard. Barry Adamson makes albums where they're supposed to be soundtracks to movies that don't exist, but I feel this album fits that description far more successfully.

Had only heard "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" before - never listened to a whole album. It's decent punk, but nothing that gets me too excited.

Never gave this one the proper time it undoubtedly deserves. This is partially due to my confusion over how to react to the initial release format. I kind of stalled out and just ended up listening to other people's copies/downloads instead of getting my own. I do recall listening to it on a particularly memorable road trip, but it's the trip itself that I remember, not the music. It just didn't grab me in the same way as their earlier material had. Listening to it now, it's basically like listening to a brand new album. I have no real memory of any of these songs. I do like it, there's plenty that I like here, but I guess that's simply the nature of one's relationship to any great band or artist that manages to last long enough; you eventually find a point of where you simply begin to drift a bit further away. Not to say that you won't drift back again at some point.

This was a transitional time both in music and in my life. The music industry was trying to figure out how to better integrate with digital downloading and this album was a big step. A step that sort of overshadowed the actual music for me. As far as my life was concerned, I had just come off a major breakup and was starting my relationship with Janie. It was a rollercoaster ride, especially at first, but I was largely in a stage of a renewed optimism and infatuation. I didn't have much room for Thom Yorke's cryptic existential doom musings. It just wasn't the right backdrop for me at the time.

Listening to it now though, there still does seem to be something missing from this album when I compare it to their earlier work (which might be unfair). Like I said, there's plenty I like here, but its more a matter of what I feel is a lack of cohesiveness overall. I definitely have a strong preference for Side A. But Side B, from "Faust Arp" on, it just sort of loses it's momentum and can't seem to recover from that stark tone shift. It could also simply be that I am somewhat desensitized to their sound by this point - having built up a tolerance of sorts.

Absolutely primal rock and roll. So pure and raw that it feels legitimately dangerous. This album is like a punch to the gut right before the final uppercut of "Raw Power" completely knocks you out. The live in studio sound suits them perfectly.

This is the one that can usually convert the skeptics who are only familiar with the hits. Shows you his full range as a performer and a songwriter. Absolutely haunting.

Spellbinding. A real sweet spot in his discography where he tempered soul searching experimentation with hypnotic grooves, all before he went completely out the window with free jazz.

A masterpiece of new wave pop. Solid top to bottom - no filler. The album, and each song within it, is constructed so meticulously well. A perfect balance of electronics and the standard rock instrumentation. The lyrics are cryptic in an evocative, rather than a puzzling, way. It also has a surprising amount of soulfulness hidden in the grooves, which I think is what really sets it apart from the pack.

I was simply bored until it got to "It's Business As Usual," then I actively began to dislike it. As for the concept of being a faux movie soundtrack, this pretense comes across more like a weak way to justify this hodgepodge of half baked musical ideas. The spoken word sections are particularly annoying. It would be one thing if this were all just background music that romanticized the past, but you have these periodic, but extensive, sections that are absolutely jarring to the experience of the music itself. This album is at once both loosely constructed and overdone.

I can't really take this seriously.

Starts off strong with "Black Mirror," but as it goes on, it sounds more and more like some kind of Off-Broadway musical. The melodrama of it is exhausting.